I knew I shouldn’t have thrown my Electrical Engineering text book in the campus pond!


My apologies in advance for the length of this post.  Feel free to skip it but I feel a little background is needed for perspective. 45 years ago in my 2nd year as a Civil Engineering major, i took the mandatory introduction to Electrical Engineering course (the same one taken by Electrical Engineering majors). Suffice it to say, the class that covered from this is current to these are MOSFETs, JFETS, FPGAs absolutely kicked my butt. I prepared myself and my parents for the inevitable F.  I even skipped the final so i could prepare for my other finals. So when my semester grades arrived I had my mom open them. She, dad, and i broke into cheers when we saw that i received a D!   It was at that moment that I promised I would never risk anyone’s safety and would stay away from electronics. Upon returning to campus for the next semester, i sealed the deal by throwing my EE text book in the campus center pond.
Fast forward 45 years and here i am neck deep in the hobby i love trying to figure out the potential benefits of adding linear power supplies to either my streamer (Lumin D2) or digital music server (Roon Nucleus) or both. I just bought a RME ADI-2 FS DAC (to take over DAC functions from the Lumin) and for the first time i heard a step function improvement in sound quality in my system. I’ve made many tweaks/equipment upgrades over the years which have each make incremental improvements, but this was a wow with ear-to-ear-grin improvement! As i get older, the still curious engineer and researcher in me likes to read audiophile books like “The Complete Guide to High-End Audio“ by Robert Harley, magazines like The Absolute Sound and Stereophile, and forums such as here on AG to understand how and why a tweak or upgrade could affect the music of my integrated system. So, long story short, if i had known I’d be going down this awesome but at times frustrating audiophile rabbit hole, i would not have thrown the text book in the pond and i would have repeated that EE course so i would truly understand the miracle that is electronics and be a better educated hunter for the next upgrade to my system. I need that knowledge to understand and leverage all of the information that is out there on LPS; a way to separate the marketing/bias and be able to analyze & predict LPS cause and effect in my particular system. So, if you’ve come this far, in addition to the digital pieces already mentioned, my analog front end is a Linn Sondek LP12 with Linn K3 cartridge playing through a Vincent PHO-701 phono pre. Both digital and analog front ends play through a Primaluna Dialog HP Integrated amp into Goldenear Triton 3 speakers (which will be my last significant upgrade improvement investment…thinking of Joseph Audio Perspective 2’s).  I listen mostly to Various Jazz sub-genres.
 Thank you if you’ve gotten this far.  If you have any insights or recommendations regarding the addition of LPS to either Streamer or server, or both, i would love to hear from you. 
ezstreams

Showing 2 responses by millercarbon

ezstreams-
I talked to the tech support guys at RME about cable and power supplies. In regards to my question about using an LPS, they wrote “
Thanks for choosing the ADI-2 DAC FS! RME does not recommend changing the power supply. The unit is designed to work optimally with the included switching power supply, and there are multiple power conditioning stages built-in inside the DAC to take care of any potential issues with the resulting power.
They say as much in their owners manual, but i wanted to double-check.

If you want to get seriously good at this then you really should get in the habit of reading all my posts. There are a lot and I don't have them bookmarked by subject matter. But somewhere in the last few days there was one where I said, save you the time, every manufacturer will tell you their whatever is so perfect nothing can improve it ever- no conditioner, no wire, no fuse, no nothing- you can only upgrade to their next whatever. 

Imagine, if you had been reading my posts you would have known this is all they ever will tell you, saved all that time and trouble, and instead of spinning your wheels working on something better instead.

Live and learn.
You're not missing anything. Our understanding of audio is so primitive the only electronics it pays to understand are the very basics. The more you try and buy based on tech like LPS the less likely you are to succeed. Focus like a laser beam on listener evaluations of sound quality and leave the tech for designers and builders.